Parking Cars in America, 1910-1945: A History

With its decentralized urban areas, pollution, and mostly inadequate public transit systems, today's America pays a heavy price for its auto dependency. This volume explores one of the more pressing aspects of the automobile problem--storage--from 1910 to the end of the World War II, contrasting the reality and perception of car parking as found in the pages of the popular newspapers and magazines of that period. From early bans on street parking to street widening efforts to the introduction of parking lots, garages, and parking meters, it chronicles attempts to accommodate the ever-increasing number of cars requiring parking spots. By failing to effect any meaningful regulations along the way, this work shows, Americans slowly ceded authority and dominance to the automobile, to the detriment of contemporary society.